KMWR: I’d love to know how this story came about. Can you tell us more about your writing process for “Bad Neighbor”"?

AD: I actually came up with the last line—“The flies die as they land”—first, and built the whole story around that. I took it from the end of an old poem I wrote in 2021 (I’m always recycling my unsuccessful work, breaking it down for parts). I also wanted to explore a theme that people don’t usually write, let alone talk, about: a dead-bedroom relationship. In those relationships, people usually assume it’s the woman who is pulling away from intimacy, but I wanted to write about the reverse. I also deliberately avoided any hints about the husband possibly being gay, or anything like that. I wanted to keep their relationship problems simple. 

Although of course also I wanted to twist it up a bit. Again, nobody really talks about this (unless you go on Reddit’s DeadBedrooms sub, which I do not recommend because BOY is it depressing) but being in a relationship, as a non-asexual person, where your (also non-ace) spouse doesn’t want to have sex with you, is soul-destroying on a level that is difficult to comprehend unless you’ve been there. So, I wanted to explore: what might someone to do get out of that situation? Or, once they have found themselves out of that situation, what might they do in order to keep this newfound intimacy? Mightn’t they hang on until their palms were bleeding? Mightn’t they keep quiet about a murder? Mightn’t they do anything, if indeed they were so fixated on their husband—and keeping their intimacy alive—that they could turn into a villain?   

KMWR: I spoke with a group of friends who read your story, and we all had different takes about who killed Loretta! I went back and read your story, and I could see how their arguments for who may have killed her suddenly put my previous readings up in the air. What craft elements do you think helped you keep a sense of mystery?

AD: That is amazing! It seriously brings a big smile to my face to know that people thought about my story that much! I may have underestimated the sense of mystery I had in the story—but I guess the craft elements that added to the mystery included a lack of emotion on the narrator’s part when she finds the wire. It’s not like we get a straight look into her head, where she thinks, “Oh my god, how could my husband have killed Loretta?!” or perhaps “Oops, silly me for not putting the wire away after I killed Loretta.” So I kept us at a distance from the narrator…

…But not all the time. I still wanted readers to be able to relate and connect to her emotionally. Otherwise, where’s your story?! So at certain points—for example, when she’s reveling in her newfound intimacy with her husband; or when she’s remembering the earlier, futile trip to the lake, and her resultant grief when it changed nothing—I tried to take us close into her head. And then when it came to the murder, well….we took a little trip slightly further outside her skull. There’s definitely some room for ambiguity with the handwriting scene, too: Rich bragged about being able to copy someone’s handwriting, and the narrator definitely remembered, but did she do anything with that memory? 

KMWR: I really admire your prose; as I read through your other works, one element that keeps appearing in the prose is the narrators’ rumination around the disintegration of the body (as found in “Night Swim”, “Planting”, “99% Emptiness”, and of course the final scene in “Bad Neighbor”). Can you speak to how this attention to the body (and its decomposition) adds to your work?

AD: Thank you! And yes, I am the first to admit that I’m fascinated by the idea of disintegration, dissolution, decay…it’s a great way to incorporate elements of the surreal and horror into an otherwise realistic piece of writing.  

I’ve always been drawn to the idea of Memento Mori, and I think it’s more important today than ever, in a culture obsessed with eternal youth and beauty and even, in the not-too-distant future, immortality (but you can probably tell how I feel about THAT. Just read Stephen King’s short story “The Jaunt”…)

The body is a lot more than a meat vessel. It’s the seat of emotion, of personal history—it remembers things that the mind (as it merrily switches back and forth between countless apps) forgets. The modern mind has the attention span of a fruit fly, or at least mine does, but the body hasn’t changed. It has a long attention span, and a memory that stretches back years. That is why I try to incorporate the body just as much as the mind in my stories. And, inevitably, the bodies I write about fall apart in a variety of unnerving ways, because who hasn’t felt themselves falling apart from time to time? (Also, it’s fun to write about.) 

KMWR: I want to take some time to congratulate you on your upcoming debut novel, All Our Tomorrows, with CLASH Books! What has been notable in the publication process—either something that has surprised you or has gone beyond your expectations?

AD: Thanks so much! I’m very excited about it. Something that went beyond my expectations was the amount of support I’ve gotten from the team at CLASH. We got a great cover for the book which I’m very happy with, and I love that I got to have input into its final appearance! 

KMWR: What have you been reading recently and what would you recommend?

AD: I just finished Please Stop Trying to Leave Me By Alana Saab and it was incredible! It has that memoir-ish-but-not-quite feeling that I love (which I also noticed in Liars by Sarah Manguso, also very much recommended). Another memoir that doesn’t feel like a memoir is The Story Game by Shze-Hui Tjoa. And of course I must recommend the memoir of all memoirs—In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado.

(I don’t usually read memoirs, you just caught me at a strange time….)

My favorite book of all time is The Secret History by Donna Tartt and if you haven’t read it yet, I must really prevail upon you to do so!

KMWR: What are your current writing projects, and what are you looking forward to?

AD: Apparently my writing tastes are all over the place, because right now I’m putting the finishing touches on a Romantasy that’s about to go on submission with my agent very soon. I also just finished drafting another book, an upmarket/horror novel (with definite room for a romance in the sequel). In fact I’m already thinking of the plot structure for the sequel and dreaming about my protagonists FINALLY getting together, lol. Also, I’m very vaguely dreaming (this one is on the back-back-BACK burner) about a collection of short stories. I’m about a third of the way through that one. 

I’m looking forward to Feb 25, 2025 because that’s when my first book releases! And then, it’s just on to the next…  

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